The Many Faces of Loss
by Allibella731
Summary: "Loss, in the form of hours and days and years, has stolen my life from me. I have come to understand that it is inescapable. I am Eva Everdeen, and though the Rebellion is long over, the fight for happiness continues." For the April Starvation Prompt.


**For the April Starvation Monthly Prompt: Inescapable**

**The Many Faces of Loss**

I have lost everything.

I have lost my family. I have lost my best friends, my home, my job, my husband, my daughter, and for a time even my mind…I have come to understand that loss is inescapable. On those days when smiling is a struggle, this inescapability threatens to suffocate me.

I am Eva Everdeen, and even though the Rebellion is long over, the fight for happiness continues for me. I don't think I can recover. The pain will always be there, an aching in my body. It started when I was only seventeen. I was a town girl, he was a Seam boy, and we were hopelessly in love. But becoming Mrs. Everdeen did have its consequences. I was faced with the impossible choice between my family and my future. As much as I worried, as bitten down as my fingernails became, as large as the circles under my eyes grew, there was really only one choice. With that choice, I gave up an entire life.

My parents would never understand—they were never really in love, not the way I was. They gave me a desperate ultimatum, confident I wouldn't give them up. Honestly, if it hadn't been for the Reaping, I might not have chosen him. I might have stayed in the cookie-cutter town life, with my future as a respectable healer, my friendly husband and my comfortable home. I gave it all up the day Maysilee died. The day she was torn apart by those outwardly beautiful birds, unable to escape death, I came to the realization that I would inevitably reach the same fate if I didn't change. No, I wouldn't be torn apart physically, but the pretty life would ruin me with guilt and heartache. How could I kiss Caleb Mellark when I was so in love with the Everdeen boy, the miner with the voice like an angel? How could I _live_ with myself, knowing I had given up the one thing that could possibly have made me happy for the "safe" choice—the cowardly choice? And so loss, in the form of my father's shaking head and my mother's tears, took my family and friends.

I just couldn't, so I didn't. I ran off the night she died. She would have loved it. Maysilee always had that little spark inside of her, the delight in adventure. It may have been what helped her survive so long in the arena. She was a romantic, too. Loss, in the form of a beautiful arena, took her from me.

Maysilee, Caleb, my parents…I lost an entire world. It was worth it, though. Worth it to be Mrs. Everdeen. He made me smile like nobody else. He brought life to our tiny Seam home, gave me a reason to have hope. I had never met anyone like him, and I would do anything for him. The only comparable love was having children. Katniss was just like her father, but Prim favored me in appearance and mannerisms. Losing him was a thousand times worse than anything I had dealt with thus far. Losing him was…too much. It broke me. I lost my mind, my soul, my will. I couldn't eat, I couldn't sleep, I couldn't hear anything. The most I could do was breathe in and out. The world became one gray, never-ending plane. Even as I thought I heard Katniss calling my name, I couldn't escape the horrible place in my mind to assure the safety of my own children. If you judge me for it, I will know you have never lost one you love. And thus loss, in the form of a mine accident, took my love, my mind, my heart from me.

People say time heals all wounds. In some respects, I agree, but some hurts are only dulled by the passage of time. After a time, I did start functioning again, but I was a different Eva Everdeen. The stabbing pain may have been replaced by a distant ache, but any little thing, even now, can bring back the pain if it reminds me of him. I really thought life would return to some semblance of normality after I "woke" from my stupor. The guilt about what I had done to my children, who were painfully thin and hollow-eyed, added a new level to all the pain I kept locked inside of me. When would it end? Did humans have a maximum capacity for mental pain that I would one day reach? Would the buildup of years of this pain just cause me to explode, or would I simply wilt until everything I found happiness in faded? For a time, things were normal, or as normal as they would ever be. His death was the second loss.

Then came the Reaping—the second one to turn my life upside down. This time, it wasn't Maysilee, but Prim. Prim, who was only a child, with her two blonde braids and her untucked shirt. Prim, my baby, walking up to death. I couldn't protect her. I never could. Katniss, who was fierce and protective and so much braver than I could ever hope to be, was the one who stood in front of Prim. I hated myself for feeling relief. How could I be relieved to send one daughter to death over another? But Katniss had what Prim had never had—a chance. She could wow the spectators, the sponsors, the world. She could survive, even triumph, in a game nobody ever seemed to win. For a few short months, I felt as though I would finally be able to live again, love again, and be _happy_.

But all things pass. All good things come to an end. It will never be otherwise.

Loss, dressed as President Snow, took my eldest daughter away from me.

I admit it, if I hadn't needed to take care of Prim, I would have killed myself. Death would have been a welcome escape. But I couldn't leave my only other daughter, not again. That would be too easy.

The world became a blur of events sometime after Katniss was Reaped the second time. I lost my home in the destruction of District Twelve. From the Town to the Seam to Victor's Village, the one constant had always been District Twelve. As much as I sometimes hated the memories left in the worn dirt roads and the tired stores, at least it had been home to me. Loss, this time in the form of bombings, took yet another thing from me.

All of this, one day, may have been manageable. Perhaps I could have lived to see a brighter sunrise, if I hadn't lost the _one _thing that kept me in the world.

Prim.

In one earth-shattering, frozen-into-my-memory moment, loss (disguised as a snare) stole my daughter from me. And I came to realize that time meant only waiting breathlessly for the next blow, that my world was simply loss masquerading as life. Love, that the people sing of, love, that the children dream of, love, with its honeyed words and deep dark eyes, is only loss seducing it's victims with beauty.

Katniss and Peeta left me, to go back, but I couldn't go. Not where there were memories and shadows in every room, haunting me.

Now, I sit in empty rooms, because I know I can never become attached to anything again. No, there will be no love (loss) to hurt me, not anymore. But as I breathe in the perfumed air of the Capitol, I realize that loss, in the form of hours and days and years, has stolen my life from me.

**Okay, I know that this was depressing. I know it wasn't my best work. Sorry. I still hope I win ;). Much love to Hagios/Lachalora for letting me use the name Eva for Mrs. Everdeen. Have a nice day!**


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